Effects of age on psychophysical measures of auditory temporal processing and speech reception at low and high levels

Abstract

Highlights We found little evidence of greater age-related hearing declines at high sound levels. There are age-related temporal-processing declines independent of hearing loss. No evidence of age-related speech-reception deficits independent of hearing loss.

Relations between speech‐reception, psychophysical temporal processing, and subcortical electrophysiological measures of auditory function in humans

“…The test battery has been described in detail in previous publications ( Carcagno, Plack, 2020 , Carcagno, Plack, 2021 ), therefore, only a high-level overview of the measures will be given here. Most tasks were run in several conditions.…”

“…In order to elucidate the relations between these measures, in the current study we exploited a rich dataset that we previously analyzed with the aim of finding signs of age-related cochlear synaptopathy (CS), or more generally, of age-related declines that could not be accounted for by loss of hearing sensitivity ( Carcagno, Plack, 2020 , Carcagno, Plack, 2021 ). This dataset includes tests of abilities close to real-world hearing abilities (speech reception, and assessment of preference for musical consonance, which for brevity will be referred to as tests of real-world hearing abilities), psychophysical tests of auditory temporal processing, and electrophysiological tests of subcortical auditory processing collected on a cross-sectional sample of 102 participants ranging in age from 19 to 74 years.…”

Cutting Through the Noise: Noise-Induced Cochlear Synaptopathy and Individual Differences in Speech Understanding Among Listeners With Normal Audiograms

“…Of the 31 experiments reviewed that used speech perception tests with appropriate SNRs for listeners with NHTs and speech stimuli that limited nonsensory contributions, eight asked listeners to report target speech played with competing, intelligible speech streams and thus emphasized acoustic cues supporting segregation and selection. Six of these found no relationship between speech intelligibility and CS proxies [one experiment in Prendergast et al (2017); one in Prendergast et al (2019); one in Carcagno & Plack (2021); Guest et al (2018); Couth et al (2020); Parthasarathy et al (2020)]. Only two of the experiments reported a positive result (see Fig.…”

“…For instance, the Digit Triplet Test [used by Prendergast et al (2017); Prendergast et al (2019); Carcagno & Plack (2021)] requires participants to identify three digits between one and nine presented in noise. In the Coordinate Response Measure [used by Guest et al (2018); Prendergast et al (2017); Prendergast et al (2019); Carcagno & Plack (2021)], participants listen to competing streams of the form “Ready <call sign> go to <color> <number>” and are asked to report back the color (out of four options) and number (between one and four, in the investigations described in this review) of the stream that contains a target call sign, such as “Baron.” Because of the structure of these stimuli and limited response options, all of these studies reduce reliance on cognitive factors that influence speech intelligibility in daily life. Such tests are clearly less natural than tests using sentences, or even open-set isolated word recognition tests, but are more likely to be sensitive to the impact of a subtle sensory deficit on speech intelligibility.…”

Prevention of Noise-Induced Hearing Loss Using Investigational Medicines for the Inner Ear: Previous Trial Outcomes Should Inform Future Trial Design

“…Evidence of noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy has been inconsistent in studies enrolling human participants (for review see 15,93), although evidence consistent with age-related synaptopathy has been provided (70,88). There are ongoing efforts in this area and new data continue to emerge regarding age-and/or noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy (22,23,26,121,122).…”